Clean Cup, Clean Cup
by DorianGray91
Summary: There was a reason Tarrant Hightopp didn't follow Alice into the real world. Despite their vital bond he was afraid, and for good reason. In reality, the Mad Hatter was haunted even before the Red Queen's reign; his dark past goes a lot further back, and gets a whole lot stranger than Iracebeth's simple tyranny. After all, nothing in Wonderland is exactly as it seems.


Hello, lovely readers! I hope you're ready for a Wonderland fiction like no other. Lots of character backstory, and lots of events after the Frabjous Day, all intertwining to form yet another fanfiction I really shouldn't be making time for, but that I can't resist writing.

I love reviews and I love reviewers. I drink them up like Hatter drinks tea. Therefore, reviews are more than welcomed. They are celebrated and honoured. Please, please, please write a couple of words just to tip your hat to this story.

Haha, tip your hat. See what I did there?

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**Chapter One**

In a Wonderland they lie,  
Dreaming as the days go by,  
Dreaming as the summers die:  
Ever drifting down the stream  
Lingering in the golden dream  
Life, what is it but a dream?

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The sweet scent of her unruly curls filled his nostrils and soothed his crowded mind as he leaned in.  
If only the moment weren't so tainted with sadness.

If he could show her how it snaked through his veins, this subtle melancholy, how it turned his arteries to rock and crumbled his weatherworn heart...

Surely she knew.

"Fairfarren, Alice." he listened to his own voice ghosting through the golden strands of her hair, and allowed himself a small smile. For her, and her bright future.

Somehow, he felt certain that her future would be just that - illustrious, incandescent, abundant in adventures yet untold. She had no other path to take.

She was so full of muchness, the world would bend its knee to her and she would float upon its favourable winds for the remainder of her life.

He, on the other hand - he had always been hounded by Tragedy, and hunted by Misfortune.

Even if he was brave enough to venture after her, perhaps he would only hinder her. Perhaps he would become a burden upon the girl who never gave in.

Perhaps his life of inexplicable paradox would be too much for the girl who took no nonsense.

Grey smog threaded its way upwards from her ankles, around her legs and torso, undulating greedily, interlacing between her fingers. Her blue halos turned dark, as though she were seeing the other side of the universe - he could tell that she no longer recognised his presence.

It was excruciating, to be the last one left, to watch her still-tangible form as she drifted into the next world and forgot him.

His quivering hands jumped up from his sides, breaking free of his control with minds of their own, and closed gently around the edges of her face. Her not-face, which was now only a two-dimensional image.

He could feel nothing, no soft warmth beneath his fingers, no rustling of wayward locks.

He longed to impose a kiss upon those full, inviting non-lips.  
But he didn't.

"Hatter." Mallyumpkin warned from a way behind him.

He started, and snapped his fiery head around to catch the watchers who had been awkwardly observing him all this time.  
They looked about as uncomfortable as he felt.

"She'll be back." the newly-crowned Queen simpered, in what she must have intended to be a soothing voice.

But voices had no flavours for him, now.  
Even words were losing their meaning, perhaps because he was refusing to acknowledge them.

Perhaps because he was slipping, impossibly, even further into madness even as she spoke.

Madness. The thought caressed his aching bones like no spoken comfort could.  
Of course. He was mad.

Not-Alice was gone. There was no reason to stay.

The burnt orange disappearing from his eyes as swiftly as it had sprung up, he very simply turned on his heel, put his best foot forward, and headed off in the direction of his own derelict house.

A house that he hadn't seen in over ten years. And a house that he had no intention of tidying when he got back.

But that was alright.  
Everything was very much alright.

He didn't have to worry about anything, so long as he was mad.

It was why he had been brought here in the first place.


End file.
